When You Think You Need to Know More to Be Good Enough

“All the wonders you seek are within yourself.” ~Sir Thomas Browne

I’m constantly looking for answers—in books, in yoga classes, in meditation. Everywhere I go I meet people, new and old, and I’m constantly asking questions. I thrive on learning new opinions, spiritualities, lessons, and facts. Relentlessly, I’m always searching for more.

Aren’t we all looking for the answers?

How am I going to leave the position that I’ve held for most of my life and start a new job, in a new company? Raise our first child (or puppy!)? Take care of our aging parents? Start teaching yoga classes after just finishing a six-month yoga teacher training course?

How do we become happy with where we are today?

These are questions that run through my head, and I’m 99% sure that a form of these questions have run through your head recently, if not today.

Where do we find the answers? In the latest self-help book on finding happiness in three easy steps? Well, that may work for today. Most, if not all, of the self help books I’ve read have helped me in some form or another, although I still find myself searching for more answers, more knowledge.

Maybe you and I will be searching for the rest of our lives for the answers that we need to live a happy, healthy, joyful, stress-free life and maybe that is okay.

I just finished reading Dani Shapiro’s book Devotion. At the end of the book, she is speaking with Sylvia Boorstein, (a meditation teacher she met along her journey) about an upcoming TV appearance that she was nervous about.

Sylvia reminds her, “This is what you know now.” Dani reflects on this and continues, “I can only know what I know now. That’s all any of us can know. Hopefully, we’ll know more an hour from now. And tonight. And tomorrow. And next year.”

As did Dani, I reflected on this statement, “This is what you know now.”

I’ve been struggling with where to put my time and effort. I work full time in the corporate world, just received my certification to teach yoga, and belong to an amazing support group dealing with the loss of my father. I also have my home life, to which I’d like to to continually devote a good portion of my time.

Ultimately, I want to help others. I want to share yoga/meditation and what I’ve learned from grief. I want to continue to write. But I’m far from an expert in these things.

There are times during a yoga class when I wonder if I will ever be able to teach a class as well as the teacher because of all the knowledge they have—quoting Buddha word for word off the top of their head, speaking Sanskrit words that I have never heard and bending fully into a forward fold while I’m still struggling to touch my toes.

Questions start running through my head, and I wonder if I will ever be good enough to teach a class and be able to share what I know and what I’ve learned through my yoga journey and grief. Will anyone give me a chance?

I’m learning, and all I can do is continue to listen and be okay with what I know right now, which is a lot more than I knew two and half years ago stepping onto my yoga mat for the first time.

So for now, this is my answer to myself: “This is what I know now.” I can’t speak in Sanskrit yet, I can’t touch my head to my knees yet, and I certainly have no clue how to raise a baby yet. But I will learn, and in meantime, I will continue writing to help heal, and practice yoga/meditate the best that I can right now.

I hope you, too, can find solace in these words, to understand that we do not need to have all the answers and all the knowledge right now.

I hope these words come up the next time you are searching for answers or starting something in new life. All you can know is what you know right now, in this moment, and that’s good enough.

Photo by John Aslund

About Kelly Higgins

Kelly Higgins is a lover of yoga, life, writing, family, friends, dogs and nature. She works full time in the corporate world although easily transitions to a part time yogi, writer and volunteer facilitating teens in a grief support group in New Jersey. Kelly spends her free time with her fiancé and two dogs out in nature, hiking and exploring the outdoors.

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